What relief I have as a parent that my children made it through college, one of them persevering through the COVID pandemic to graduate. Relief that makes you weep, especially when I read the following:
Most students at colleges that close give up on their educations altogether. Fewer than half transfer to other institutions, a SHEEO study found. Of those, fewer than half stay long enough to get degrees.
Many lose credits when they move from one school to another and have to spend longer in college, often taking out more loans to pay for it (source.)
How many are affected by this situation of closing colleges? Better sit down for this:
The rest join the growing number of Americans — now more than 40 million, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center — who spent time and money to go to college but never finished.
I know trade schools and other venues offer options but being college educated, the second in my family after my mother who went to teacher college in Panama, it still means something. I would rather college plus technical certifications than simply the latter.